


Hosiery

by sonatine



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Carterson, Cartson, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-14 23:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3428933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonatine/pseuds/sonatine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had to stop for a moment. Jack strolled along, throwing her a smug look over his shoulder. “If it took me this long to work up to wearing purple,” she said, falling back into step with him, “I’ll need at least another year before I go dancing.”</p>
<p> “I’d believe that more easily,” he said, coming to a stop in front of the telephone company front, “if I’d never seen you throw yourself head-first into a firefight with the Russian secret service. Come on.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. socks

It was the little things that rattled her the most: the small comforts that had been infeasible during the wartime years.  She’d gotten used to drinking her tea with only milk while sugar had been rationed. Now with even one lump it tasted sickly sweet. Peggy pushed away the cup still half full, leaving the tab under the saucer. She smiled goodbye to the waitress behind the counter (one of Angie’s colleagues, blond, but she couldn’t remember her name) and walked to the department store up the street.

Every single pair of her stockings, save for the ones currently on her legs, had ladders—an unfortunate byproduct of frequent fighting. (Evidently people involved in the black market had greater worries than the shoddy state of their fingernails.) She inwardly writhed at the expense, taking a neatly decorated package of stockings off the shelf, but there was no help for it. When she turned to find the register, she caught sight of a man farther down the aisle. He was staring fixedly at a pair of socks in his hand.

It was odd to see Jack Thompson outside of the office. In her mind, he only existed in two forms: the brash agent swaggering around S.S.R. headquarters and the soldier on a tactical mission. This weekend, sock-buying Jack was an anomaly. Heavens, imagine him depositing a paycheck at the bank. Or _washing dishes_. 

“If those are a gift for the new chief,” she said, walking up to him, “I’d go with beige. He seems the type to consider anything above navy as flamboyant.” 

Jack started. He lowered his hand, looking almost surprised to find it full of socks. “What are you doing here, Carter?”

“Reconnaissance. Investigating department store chains as a front for Eastern European espionage networks.” At the look on his face, she held up her package of stockings. “Unfortunately the reality is a bit more ordinary.”

He flipped the pack of socks over in his hand. “It’s what I missed most,” he said, catching her eye. “Stupid, huh?”

 “Out on the front, you mean?”

 “Yeah. Never had enough of them. Nothing worse then wet socks, especially when you’re caught in rain in the trenches for days.” He shrugged and tucked them under his arm. “Feels strange to be able to just walk into a place and buy more. Whenever you want.”

 “When I was able to wear color again,” Peggy found herself saying, “after so many years of army khaki—it felt almost extravagant. I had to work my way back up. It took forever to get to purple, you’ve no idea.”

 He cracked a smile and it struck her what a rare sight this was. She’d maybe only seen him smile once or twice. Ever. She realized she was staring and hastily asked, “Any plans for the evening, Agent Thompson?”

 “Why, you looking for a date— _Agent_ Carter?” he said, sliding back into his trademark smirk. This was somehow more comfortable for her. She rolled her eyes and headed for the register.

 Jack fell into step. “I was gonna head into to the office. Got some leads I want to follow up on.”

 “What a thrilling Saturday night line-up.”

 “And what do _you_ got planned for the evening?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

 “Erm—”

 This had in fact been her exact plan. He seemed to guess this and said, “What do normal people do on Saturday nights?” as they joined the line at the register.

 “I hear some sort of food and drink is involved,” Peggy said, paying for her stockings and tucking the change into her handbag. “Or a film, if conversation topics are limited.”

 “Well, the food and drink part doesn’t sound too bad,” said Jack. He paid for his socks and followed her to the door. “Not as fun as invading a Russian prison-boarding-school, mind you, but I reckon we could suffer through it. Hold these, will ya?” he added, tossing his socks into her handbag as they exited the store. The sky had darkened and raindrops were beginning to splatter on the pavement.

 “I am neither a packhorse nor a sock drawer,” said Peggy as they turned up their coat collars in identical movements.

 “They won’t fit in my pockets,” he protested. “Just keep ’em till we get there.”

 “We’re not going to dinner, Jack,” she said flatly.

 “Not dinner. Dancing.”

 She had to stop for a moment. Jack strolled along, throwing her a smug look over his shoulder. “If it took me this long to work up to wearing purple,” she said, falling back into step with him, “I’ll need at least another year before I go dancing.”

 “I’d believe that more easily,” he said, coming to a stop in front of the telephone company front, “if I’d never seen you throw yourself head-first into a firefight with the Russian secret service. Come on.” He motioned for her to go through the door he was holding open. “Rain’s picking up.”

 “If this is your idea of going dancing, Thompson, it’s a small wonder you’re still single.”

 “Dancing is for normal people, remember? We’re going to work. Although,” he added, as they passed through the empty ground floor, “to ease us back into everyday society, I’ll order us some food to go along with it.”


	2. stockings

Jack liked the S.S.R. office best at night, when it was empty and silent. There were no expectations to uphold in solitude, no new chief to impress, no nosy coworkers to keep in line. As far Carter went—well—she’d already seen the worst of him and still seemed to tolerate him. Also she had a way of expressing sympathy without oozing into pity. A rare trait.

He called in an order to the diner round the corner while Peggy collected various files and materials from the chief’s office—which had previously been locked, but stood no chance against the hairpin she’d pulled from her hair. Jack made a mental note to never leave anything compromising locked in his desk.

As she spread miscellaneous files and photos across her station, Jack took hold of Sousa’s chair and turned it round so that they could both work at her desk.

(She was surprised and pleased—albeit warily—when he did this. Since returning from their Russia op, things had been friendlier between them, but she hadn’t realized until just now that Jack had gone from viewing her as a natural disaster to actively seeking out her company.)

Though the Leviathan threat had been for the present neutralized in New York, the chief had ordered all agents to search for any possible remaining menace. This meant following a lot of useless leads and doing a lot of minute research: mostly into anyone who’d ever had contact with known Leviathan members.

“Was Dottie Underwood friendly with anyone at that ladies’ hotel you used to live at?” Jack asked, making a note to himself and then placing a paper into carefully into a specific pile.

(He was neater than Peggy would have expected. Almost fastidious in the way he organized his work. Maybe it was the oftentimes belittling way he addressed his colleagues, but she’d assumed he was a spoiled child of an American Elite family who would be careless with things of importance.)

“She was friendly with everyone,” Peggy answered, scanning through a lengthy phone bill. “That was kind of the point.”

“But was there any woman in particular she hung around? Go to the pictures with, grab coffee—anyone at all she might’ve dropped information to?”

“I doubt it. The place she was raised in… I expect it was an environment that didn’t encourage the sharing of feelings—if not actively discouraging it. Also,” she added, “at her last apartment, her neighbors never even knew she was living there. She had virtually no contact with anyone.”

“But that definitely wasn’t the case at The Griffith,” Jack said, rubbing the five-o’clock-shadow forming on his jaw line. “It sounded like she socialized with lots of people. Including you.”

“Yes, well.” Peggy reached down to unlock her desk drawer and rummaged around inside. “She was interested in gathering information about me, not forming a friendship.”

“Not necessarily mutually exclusive,” he said with a grin.

A funny look crossed her face and she reached across the desk to grab a file near his elbow. Then she gave a startled cry and snatched her leg up onto the chair.

“Oh _bollocks_.” She ran a finger down the long rip in her stocking, newly torn by the key protruding from the drawer lock. “This was my last un-ripped pair.”

“Didn’t you just buy some today?” said Jack, rearranging a stack of papers she had upended.

“Only the one packet,” she said slowly, as if to a child. “Which puts me back to square one.”

“You know there’s an easier solution.” He tossed her file that she’d been reaching for. “Don’t wear stockings anymore.”

“As enjoyable as that would be,” she said, deliberately crossing her legs across the desk, “I should hate to see your work productivity decline any further. Thompson.”

This was something he was willing to sacrifice, but his phone did not feel the same way. He reached an arm back to pick up the jangling receiver, dragging his eyes away from Peggy’s legs. “Yeah.” He hung up and stood, shrugging into his suit jacket and coat. “Dinner’s ready. I’ll go pick it up.”

“Mind you don’t get your socks wet,” she said, absorbed in the case file.

 

 

When Jack returned, the office was empty. Bitter disappointment twisted in his stomach at the thought of Peggy leaving—or sneaking out, more like—while he was gone.

“Carter?” he called, stepping out of the elevator.

There was no answer.

He set down the food on his desk, tossing his coat across the back of his chair. “Great,” he muttered, looking over at Carter’s desk.

The lamp was still burning. Her handbag was on the floor, next to her shoes.

A trickle of doubt crawled through the back of his mind, and he was pulling his gun out of his holster before he realized what he feared.

“Carter?” he called again, peering into the chief’s empty office before cautiously searching the rest of headquarters.

It was no secret that Peggy had made a fair amount of enemies—and while it was unlikely that anyone would break into a secret government agency to target one person, it wasn’t unthinkable that someone could have followed them here. It’s not as if Jack had been paying close attention to his surroundings on the walk over.

And although Peggy could definitely handle herself, he thought, glancing into the viewing room and the interrogation room beyond, if she’d been caught off guard—after hours—alone in the office…

Something akin to real panic gripped him, and he kicked open the door to the locker room with his gun extended and primed.

 

 

Shock registered on Peggy’s face as he burst into the locker room. She was sitting on a bench with her skirt hiked up well past her thighs, putting on her new pair of stockings.

“What the _hell_ , Jack!” she shouted, jumping to her feet. Her skirt fell back to its normal position. Her stockings also fell and pooled in undignified bunches around her ankles, though this had absolutely no detracting effect from her current warlike stance.

“I—” He cleared his throat and returned his gun to its holster. “Got worried something might’ve happened to you.”

“In the _locker room_?” she said, her voice dripping with disdain.

“I called out and nobody answered!” he said, sweeping an arm out toward the office.

“So naturally you just barged right in.”

“This door isn’t soundproof, if you heard me shouting your name like an idiot, you could’ve given me some warning—”

“Did you expect to find me taken hostage and tied up? God knows nobody _ever_ leaves their desk for any other reason—”

“Well, what am I supposed to think, I get back and the room’s empty save for your shoes and your handbag, for all I know Dottie Underwood or some surviving leg of Hydra’s sneaked in here to wreak revenge—”

There was a pause. They’d unconsciously moved closer while shouting and were now standing nose-to-nose.

“And why would you think Hydra would be after me?” Peggy asked coolly, propping a hand on her hip.

He slid his hands into his pockets. Without heels, she was shorter than he was used to: she had to tilt her chin up to look him in the eye. She was by no means any less intimidating, but it made her appear younger than he—which she actually was, he’d recently discovered. He’d always assumed from her confidence (and track record) that she was older.

“Read your war file,” Jack said. “Yours and Captain Rogers’. The ultra-classified versions. Got them from Dooley,” he went on, ignoring the bevy of emotions flying across her face, “when you were in custody. He appealed to the higher-ups—on grounds of finding more material to indict you and Stark.”

There was a heavy pause. Jack waited for her to start yelling again, but she just watched him with narrowed eyes.

“I’ll, uh—” with a gesture to the general vicinity of the floor—“let you get on with it.”

He left the locker room. Peggy sat back down on the bench and pulled the stockings up her legs, which were now covered in gooseflesh.


	3. suspenders

Peggy exited the locker room as loudly as she could, calling, “Just so you’re aware, Thompson, I am now re-entering the office to— good lord.” She came to a stop. “Have you ordered us an entire herd?”

Jack looked up from Sousa’s desk, where he was surrounded by rolling hills of take-out containers. “Thought we might be here a while,” he said around a mouthful of burger.

“Till Christmas?” She appropriated Yaoch’s former chair and settled down next to the feast as well, helping herself to a hopeful approximation of a steak-and-kidney pie.

“You seem to be readjusting to the lifted ration restrictions fairly well. At The Griffith,” she remembered fondly, “most of the girls would take food back to their rooms in droves. None of us could handle the idea of waste. I think we’re permanently marked.”

“Don’t worry, none of this will go to waste,” Jack said dryly. “Farm habit.”

“That explains a lot,” she said, eyeing the muscles apparent even beneath his shirt.

“I left home at fifteen, Carter,” he said with a knowing look. He polished off the hamburger and started on a steak. “And the farm’s in Georgia.”

“That’s quite young,” she said, leadingly. “What were you doing until the war?”

“The usual stuff.” He sifted through the food containers, not looking at her. “Construction. Some factory work. Traveling salesman. What _I’m_ interested in,” he said, settling on a steaming bowl of vegetables, “is how a nice British gal like yourself ended up on this side of the ocean—working for Uncle Sam, no less.”

“It’s no great mystery,” she said, slathering her roll with butter ( _butter!_ As much as she wanted!). “My dad was an American GI. He met my mum in a hospital in London where she was a nurse. She died of tuberculosis when I was young, though, and after the Anschluss… He knew the signs, my dad. He’d been in the trenches during the Great War and at the idea of another one so soon, he kind of fell to pieces—so he packed us up and moved us to D.C. to live with my aunt.”

“He still live there?” Jack asked, tossing the empty vegetable bowl into the growing trash pile.

“No, he died a while back. Cirrhosis,” she added, and they both unconsciously glanced at the glass of bourbon in Jack’s hand.

He poured half of his drink into a spare glass and handed it to Peggy. She took it.

(She was curled up in the chair with her legs tucked under her. What with her bare feet and hands wrapped comfortably round the glass of bourbon, it felt like the two of them relaxing at home on a rainy evening. He loosened his tie, which suddenly felt very tight around his neck, and tossed it onto his desk.)

Jack unbuttoned his collar and settled further into his seat, looking like he was preparing for story time.

“You ever think of going back home to England?” he asked.

Peggy shrugged. “It’s not really home anymore. It’s where I grew up, but it’s not… home. And I’ve no family there.”

“And your aunt in D.C.?” he said, watching her intently.

“I only lived there for a couple years. I didn’t know her that well, anyhow. We were never close. For a time during the war, I thought maybe…” She cleared her throat. “I thought I might live in Brooklyn after things settled down. But then when the war ended, I got this job, and…” She smiled and shrugged.

A shadow had crossed Jack’s face. “Brooklyn,” he murmured. He leaned forward in his chair, tracing the rim of his glass with a thumb.

“But how did you end up in the army?” he asked abruptly. “I doubt it was easy for you to get in.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Then why’d you sign up in the first place? You could’ve just worked in the factories like the other women.”

“Why did _you_?” she shot back.

He grinned. “Fair enough.” He drained his glass and rolled up his sleeves. “All right, Little Orphan Annie,” he said. “Back to work.”

  

In the months that followed, as spring slipped unnoticeably into summer and then into autumn with a hard chill, Peggy and Sousa fell into the habit of referring to Jack as _Suspenders_ around the office. Upon his instatement in May, the new chief had assumed that Jack was the golden boy of the S.S.R., and Jack had said nothing to persuade him otherwise. He used his confidence and boldness to slide once again into the position of the chief’s right-hand-man. He put in twice as many hours as the typical agent, and, bolstered by the senator’s praise and the success of a few high-profile raids of latent Leviathan holdouts, reached new levels of cockiness.

“You can’t deny he’s an excellent agent, though, Daniel,” Peggy said in response to his complaining one afternoon when they were packing up files of a recently completed case in the conference room.

“General Eisenhower,” Sousa said in disgust, “could give him lessons in humility.”

“I think it may be a psychological tactic,” said Peggy, heaving a box into her arms. “If he _acts_ like the sun shines out of his arse, he has to bloody well live up to it.”

Daniel’s eyebrows knotted together as Jack came swaggering into the conference room. “My ears are burning,” he said, dropping an extra few piles into the box Peggy was holding. “All good things?”

“I was saying you that were an arrogant arsehole,” she said around a smile, pushing the door open with her foot.

“Here, Peggy, I’ve got it,” said Daniel, moving to hold the door for her. Jack, meanwhile, was laughing.

“Fuck off, Carter,” he said with a grin, hefting a stack of boxes into his arms as well. “You know you wouldn’t have me any other way.”

“I wouldn’t have you even if your cock could cure polio,” she said, to a general chorus of snickers. Jack winked at her, unperturbed, and strolled back into the chief’s office.

Daniel was visibly discomforted as they loaded the rest of the boxes into storage. While the rest of the agency had acclimatized to Thompson and Carter’s constant game of one-upsmanship, Daniel was the only one who appeared to disapprove.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” he said quietly, following Peggy to her workstation.

“Do what?”

He missed the warning tone in her voice. “Act like ‘one of the guys.’ You don’t have to pretend to be something you’re not to be accepted.”

“Daniel,” she said, straightening, “I entered the army when I was nineteen. I can compose sonnets of vulgarity. With pleasure.”

“I’m just saying—” he moved back toward his desk—“you don’t have to stoop to his level.”

Peggy picked up a paper off her desk, folded it in quarters, and tucked it into her handbag. She then headed for the elevators to follow a lead. Jack caught her eye through the windows of the chief’s office. She pointed to the elevator and mimed driving. He nodded and turned his attention back to the chief.

She patted Daniel’s shoulder as she left. Since the day that Jack had snubbed them both in front of that senator, Sousa seemed to have made it his personal crusade to protect Peggy from the world. Though she was grateful for his friendship and support, it only made the divide even more apparent—that he thought of them in distinct terms of _gentleman_ and _lady_. Jack, at least, she thought, her gaze flicking to his suspendered shoulders, treated her the exact same way as he treated everyone else.

 

“Peggy!” Angie shrieked, bounding off the stage. “What are you doing here?”

“Well,” Peggy said, smiling, “seeing as I missed your last performance, I at least wanted to come see the rehearsal.” She braced herself for impact as Angie, predictably, threw herself into Peggy’s arms.

Peggy was glad she’d worn trousers today. The small theater had no heat on, to save on costs outside of performances, and the damp November chill permeated through cracks in the walls. She could see the breaths of the actors on stage; several of them were wearing extra coats and sweaters over their costumes.

“This is such a nice surprise, I was getting worried about tonight, you know, with the director and Veronica and everything, and then I saw a black cat on the way here and I thought _oh, god, that’s that_ , and I know it’s just stupid superstition but, well, you never know.”

“It’ll be great,” Peggy said firmly, giving Angie one last squeeze before pulling away. “And whatever happens, I’ve got an extra bottle of wine stashed in the cupboard at home.”

“You’re the best,” said Angie. “Sit in the far right corner so you can see the stage manager in the wings. Watch his face whenever Jimmy speaks.”

Peggy did. She laughed behind her hand at the expressions of the man in wire-rimmed glasses, who looked as if he’d been condemned to suck on the same lemon from now to eternity. She heard the door to the theater quietly open and close behind her. Jack slid into the seat beside her, under the cover of the darkened audience space.

“Got your message,” he said under his breath, holding up the note she’d slipped into his pocket. “I hope there’s a good reason for you making me lie to the chief.”

“I thought it would be best not to attract undue attention for the moment,” she whispered back.

“What do you need backup on?” he asked simply.

“I think I may have found Dottie Underwood.”


	4. garters

Jack wasn’t certain if the shiver down his spine was from the feel of Peggy’s breath against his neck, or the idea of facing the Russian assassin again.

“What—here? In an off-Broadway trash heap?”

“Tread lightly,” she snapped. “That’s Angie onstage.” 

“Ah,” he said, smiling at how fiercely she protected her friends. “Then I apologize. Though kind of a risky move for Dottie, isn’t it?”

“A few weeks ago,” Peggy whispered, their heads tilted close together, “Angie started complaining about the manager’s new mistress. A ‘firecracker’, she called her, named Veronica, who is evidently an abysmal actress but now getting all the good roles.”

“Hiding in plain sight.” Jack rubbed his chin. “You really don’t think Angie would recognize her?”

“We know she is a master of disguise. Not just wearing a costume, but really becoming another person—speech, mannerisms, and everything. Would you recognize Howard if he were to shave off his mustache, dye his hair grey, and mumble at the ground with no eye contact?”

“Hmm,” said Jack, not totally convinced—but he trusted Peggy and her instincts. “So what’s our move?”

“She’ll recognize us both immediately, but I’m banking that she won’t want to blow her cover just yet. This may give us the edge we need. But we’ll need to move fast and decisively once we commit to this, or she’ll disappear again.”

“Okay,” he said, moving his gun from the holster and hiding it in his coat pocket. “I’ll follow your lead. By the way,” he added, as they stood, “what tipped you off?”

“That thing you said about Dottie spending time with me—about how gathering information and wanting to be friends weren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.”

Jack could immediately pinpoint the conversation and the night she was referring to, when they had been alone in the office after hours. The idea that she had remembered something he’d said offhand— So many months later—

Peggy was moving swiftly toward the side door off the stage. She wasn’t walking in the way she did when she was trying to go unnoticed; her motions were brisk and confident. He mirrored her movements, guessing that they would take an offensive approach, rather than one by stealth.

He was right. She took hold of his arm as they went through the door that led to a dingy hallway backstage. She smiled at the few actors lounging around, smoking.

“Hello! I’m Angie’s roommate,” she said brightly, her tight grasp on Jack’s arm telling him that neither of the two women present were Dottie. As he’d only seen her for a moment in the hallway that day at The Griffith, he wasn’t sure he would be able to recognize her. He would have to rely on Peggy. “We wanted to wish her good luck before the show tonight—unfortunately we can’t make it—have you seen her around?”

“Um,” the thin man mumbled, “Veronica might’ve seen her. Here she comes. HEY—VERONICA…”

The woman who was emerging from the bathroom was a buxom brunette with round cheeks and a swishy way of walking. The woman that Jack remembered from the hallway was thin, tall, and all angles. But at Peggy’s sharp intake of breath, he plunged his hand into his coat pocket.

He didn’t even have time to pull his gun out before Dottie was upon them. The woman moved like a hurricane. The other three actors were already on the floor with their throats slit by the time he managed to fire at her. She dodged his shot and lunged toward him with her knife. He could only throw his arm up in defense. He felt a searing pain as the knife slashed his bicep instead of his throat, but by then Peggy had joined the fight.

Jack couldn’t fully process what his eyes were seeing. They were both fighting fast and ferocious, a tangle of limbs and flying hair. Jack didn’t trust himself to take a shot with his left hand—he didn’t want to accidentally hit Peggy—but then Dottie landed a kick to Peggy’s midriff and Peggy went down hard on the floor.

Jack took the shot. Dottie was quick to dodge, but he’d managed to wing her. He saw her shoulder jerk backwards. She turned to him with fury in her eyes, actually hissing.

But then the stage door opened and the actors poured into the hallway, having heard the commotion.

Dottie didn’t hesitate. She turned and fled.

Peggy was rising to her feet. “Come on! We'll have to— oh dear god, your arm.”

Dottie’s knife must have sliced open an artery, because even though Jack’s hand was clenched around the wound, there was already a massive bloodstain spreading across his sleeve.

“Give me something to tie it off with,” he said, but Peggy was one step ahead of him. She tore the garter off her right leg, stuffing the stocking into her coat pocket, and tossed it over to him. He ripped it open with his teeth and tried to tie it around his arm, but his fingers were shaking too much. Peggy took charge and firmly knotted it around his bicep, trying hard not to imagine Jack Thompson ripping her other garter off her leg with his goddamn teeth. She didn’t know that he too was struggling to get the same image out of his mind.

“Good,” he said, experimentally shaking his arm to make sure the tourniquet held. “Let’s go.”

Dottie had already disappeared through the back door and was loose in the city. Peggy took off her heels, shoved them into Jack’s hands, and pounded after her. “You get the car!” she shouted over her shoulder. “I’ll follow her on foot!”

He pushed past the gaping actors and ran towards the entrance, praying his car hadn’t already been towed by New York’s finest for illegal parking.

 

Peggy sprinted after Dottie for four city blocks before she realized, with a sinking feeling, where she was headed. She burst into Grand Central Terminal only a moment after Dottie, but she was already gone. The chameleon was blending into the crowd. Keeping in mind that Jack had wounded Dottie’s shoulder, Peggy moved through the rush-hour horde while sweeping the floor for any bloodstains. Dottie was close. She could sense it.

She felt a tingle go up her spine. Then something hit the back of her head with a sickening crunch, and everything went dark.

 

Peggy woke to a pounding headache. She sat up slowly, letting the blood rush to her head. When the pounding continued, she realized that it was not, in fact, the sound of her head splitting in two, but coming from outside. She looked at her surroundings. She was laying on a sofa in a comfortable sitting room, beyond which lay a kitchen. She rose and eased her way through the kitchen, peering through the window to investigate the source of the pounding. It didn’t take long to find.

Jack was round the side of the house, dressed in a thick green sweater and old army fatigues, chopping firewood. There was a four-foot-pile beside him.

“Jack.”

He swung the axe down and left it sticking in the log. “You’re up,” he said, flexing his hands. His eyes looked very blue against the sweater.

“What happened?” she asked, rubbing the back of her head.

“Some guy knocked you out with a briefcase in the middle of Grand Central,” he said quietly. “Ran away, though, when he saw me coming for him. Not sure why—he was built like a bear.”

“And where are we now?”

“New Jersey,” he said. “My grandmother’s place.”

“You brought this kind of danger to her door?” Peggy said incredulously, looking back at the house.

“I wouldn’t have, if there were any other option,” he said. “They—I’m guessing that man is somehow connected to Dottie—mostly likely know where we both live. And my grandmother is staying at a friend’s tonight, anyway.”

“I can’t believe you just unanimously decided—while I was unconscious—”

He reached out a hand and gently chucked her under the chin. “As if I had a chance of persuading you to run to safety while you were conscious.” He strode toward the open kitchen door. “Come on. Night’s falling. We need to secure the perimeter.”

 

“We can’t stay here, Jack,” Peggy protested, following him inside the house. “We need to get back to the city.”

“No,” Jack said, rummaging through the fridge. “I alerted the office and every agent is combing the city for them now. We recuperate here for the night. We’ll rejoin the hunt in the morning.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. They could be anywhere by then—”

“They could be anywhere by now.”

“We’ve finally caught a lead! I can track her again, I know I can—”

“I know you can, too,” he said. “But you were passed out for hours, Carter. Concussed, the doctor said. You’re in no position to do anything right now.”

She guiltily remembered that he, too, was wounded. She paused her fire and asked, “How’s your arm?”

“Fine. Stitched up and disinfected. Still hurts like a bitch, though.”

“That’s good,” she said distractedly.

Jack had moved to the stove and was frying up an inordinate amount of eggs. “I sent an agent over to your place, too,” he added. “In case your roommate tries to go home.”

“Oh, she won’t,” said Peggy. “When we first moved in together, I gave her the address of every S.S.R. safe house in the city in case of emergency, with specific instructions how to get into each.”

“And by ‘gave her the addresses’, you mean…?”

“Grilled her mercilessly until she had them memorized,” Peggy admitted.

“Bet she loved that.”

“She did. She practiced a different accent each time.”

They grinned at each other. But Peggy’s smile quickly faded as she imagined Angie being ambushed by Dottie en route to a safe house.

“No,” said Jack, accurately reading the look on her face.

“We’re _wasting time_ ,” she said. “You know how crucial it is to follow a lead before the trail goes cold—”

“You’re just going to have to let this one go.”

“Jack—come on—think about Krzeminski, about _Dooley_ —”

“Yeah, they’re dead! And even if they were still alive, I’d care a hell of a lot more if _you_ got killed than if they did.”

They stood glaring at each other for charged moment of impasse. And then, as it often happens when both parties want each other so badly they can barely stand it, they surged together.

Neither could later remember exactly how it all happened, though Peggy had a moment of lucidity when she had her legs wrapped around Jack’s waist and her back pressed up against the wall (her shirt was already off and so were his pants, when did that happen?) and she could vaguely tell that her hands were in his thick, coarse hair—but all that her brain could truly process at the moment was Jack’s fervent, open-mouthed kisses and his hands running over every last bit of her skin and the feeling that she might actually die from sensory overload.

Jack, for his part, didn’t have a single conscious thought up until Peggy said his name in this sort of breathy moan and then he lost it. A lightning burst of clarity went through his mind and it hit him that this was Peggy, this was actually Peggy trembling beneath his touch and biting down on his lip and her fingernails digging into his back and she pulled him closer and she was soft and pliable but overlaid atop this in the back of his mind he knew how she was this confident, kind, spectacular hard-ass and how much he loved her ( _fuck—_ ) and then their gazes met and that was it. They could have no more have stopped what was happening than they could try and drag the tide back out to sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> help I’m running out of chapter titles - this was originally only supposed to be a three-parter 
> 
> THANK YOU for all your kudos and comments, I love you all. Next chapter should be up tomorrow or Sunday


	5. gloves

But then both of them heard the faint creak of floorboards, and so stop they did.

Jack automatically lunged toward the man—he knew he stood no chance against Dottie—and slammed his arm against the wall, knocking the gun from his hand. It skittered across the kitchen floor and disappeared beneath the fridge. As he grappled with this bear of a Russian, Jack realized that he still had Peggy’s stocking clenched in his hand. He could hear her and Dottie fighting somewhere behind him. He tossed it over his shoulder without looking.

Peggy caught the stocking and wrapped it around Dottie’s neck. She then tackled her to the ground, pinning Dottie’s arms down with her knees. It was like trying to hold down a trashing snake.

Jack smashed his opponent against the wall, which he slid down limply. Jack stooped down to help Peggy with her fight. He was still a little hesitant about fighting a woman, as he crouched down beside them, until Dottie viciously head-butted him. He heard—and felt—his nose crack. He then knocked her head against the floor, and she lay still.

He sat back on his heels, swearing in a steady, unending stream. He checked to make sure his arm wound hadn’t reopened, then attempted to see how much it hurt to touch his nose. (The answer was: a lot.) Peggy nodded toward the man knocked out by the wall. “Cuff him. And find something to tie his legs with.”

Jack handcuffed the man to the radiator and tied his ankles together with a curtain sash. He’d buy Gam-Gam a new one. Or maybe new curtains altogether, he decided, guiltily taking in the state of her sitting room. Peggy had unwrapped the stocking from around Dottie’s neck and bound her wrists behind her back. She then pulled her other stocking from her pocket and did the same to her legs.

She looked over at Jack. And they burst out laughing.

Peggy had been fighting in a bra and trousers, her shirt having been tossed aside somewhere in the kitchen. Jack was sitting on the floor, still in a sweater and underwear. They looked ridiculous.

“Come on then,” Peggy said, giggling helplessly. “Let me see your nose.”

“Be gentle,” he begged, and she snapped it back into place. “ _Fuuuck_ me,” he swore, probing at experimentally. He could already feel it swelling.

This made Peggy laugh even harder. “I would’ve,” she said, stooping to kiss him, “had they not interrupted us.”

His face blazed and he pulled her onto his lap to kiss her properly. They broke away a moment later when the smell of smoke reached them.

“ _Shit_ , the eggs!”

They sprinted for the kitchen. Jack turned off the burner and looked sadly down at the charred mess. “This is inedible, right?”

Peggy leaned around his shoulder. “I would say so, yes.”

“Those were all the eggs we had,” he sighed, dumping them in the garbage.

“We should get going anyway,” said Peggy. She glanced back at the two unconscious Russians on the sitting room floor. “I’ll feel better when they’re both in custody.”

“Hm,” Jack agreed, reaching for the telephone. “I’ll call to have someone meet us at headquarters.”

  

All of the tires on Jack’s car were naturally slashed, so Peggy hotwired the Russians’ car while Jack loaded up the bodies in the trunk. They then drove off back to the city with Peggy at the wheel. Jack originally balked at the idea, citing her recent concussion and his unwillingness to die in a ditch, to which she retorted that he couldn’t even shift gears with his wounded arm.

They drove in silence until they reached the tunnel, coming down off the adrenaline rush. And something close to awkwardness lingered too. They both knew there was a heavy need to talk about what had happened back in the kitchen—but neither had the energy to broach the topic yet.

“Please tell your grandmother that I’ll be sending her money later this week to help with the damages,” Peggy said as they entered Manhattan.

Jack snorted. “Over a scratched-up table and a couple marks on the wall? She raised eight maniac boys and breaks dishes by threes out of superstition. But yeah, I’ll tell her if it makes you feel better.” He then turned away and mumbled something about meaning to stop by there later that week to fix things up anyway.

Peggy covered up a smile, remembering the giant amount of firewood he’d just chopped for his grandmother—with an arm wound. She clearly meant more to him than he cared to admit.

She pulled up next to the curb of the designated drop-off point. There was already an armored car parked there. Jack went to talk to the driver, while Peggy moved to the trunk, keeping her gun trained on their captives. Men in all black got out of the S.S.R. vehicle and set about transferring Dottie and her partner. Dottie was already stirring as they pulled her from the trunk. She leaned heavily against the man guiding her, and fluttered her eyelashes prettily. “Oh,” she murmured. “What happened?”

“Come along, miss,” the agent said, though he was staring at her stretch and moan.

“You’ll want to keep several men in the back with them,” Peggy instructed sharply.

“That’s all right ma’am, we’ve got it from here,” said the man handling Dottie. Dottie looked over her shoulder at Peggy with a faint smile.

“I really must insist—” Peggy started, but then a second car pulled up behind them. Out stepped the chief. He was not smiling.

“Chief, please, can you impress upon these men the importance of—”

“No one is impressing anything,” he said. “Except upon you. Do you know what time it is? Do you know what kinds of chaos you have caused at this agency over the past six hours? Only _starting_ with not bothering to tell me what you were up to?” He continued to list the string of injuries, damages, and stress her “little stunt” had caused.

He did not yell like Dooley would. He continued in a calm, level tone mere decibels above a whisper. It was terrifying. Peggy kept her fists clenched as she withstood his censure. Jack came strolling up to them as the armored car pulled away, with the normal swagger in his step.

“And you,” Chief whispered, leveling his gaze on his golden boy. Jack froze.

“I expected this kind of stunt from Carter, but not from my best agent. What the hell happened, Thompson?”

Peggy saw his jaw clench. She knew by now just how much praise and job validation meant to him.

“Well, sir,” said Jack, crossing his arms, “what happened was that Agent Carter and I singled-handedly caught you the last remaining members of Leviathan here in New York. And the most dangerous.”

Peggy closed her eyes.

There was a frosty pause.

“I see,” Chief said softly. “And you think this deserves praise. You go off half-cocked on some wild, unauthorized mission… but because you ‘caught the bad guys’, it’s okay in the end.”

Neither Jack nor Peggy answered him.

“You wasted precious manpower and resources tonight, and nearly got yourselves killed in the process. This could have all been avoided with backup and a little head’s up to me. So no. You do not get praise. You are both on a week’s suspension without pay. Come back into work next Thursday. And you’d better be prepared to work yourselves to the bone to get back into my good graces.”

Chief got back into his car and drove away. Peggy realized just then that he’d been in his pajamas.

Jack exhaled loudly. “That was brutal,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

She shook her head. “I think I’d rather walk, thank you.”

“Peggy. It’s four in the morning.”

“I can take care of myself, Jack. Have a good night.”

“Carter— wait.”

She turned, eyebrows raised. She looked exhausted, Jack noticed, and desperate to forestall anything he had to say. He realized uneasily that she’d made no mention of endearments tonight. She hadn’t tried to broach any discussion and now, when he could barely keep up the courage to speak to her, she was acting like a trapped animal waiting for the opportune moment to escape.

Maybe it was only he, Jack, that had developed an emotional attachment. Maybe it was purely physical for her. And why wouldn’t it be? Her last boyfriend was Captain Fucking America, for god’s sake. He’d seen the look on her face when she’d been explaining to Dooley about the vial hidden in the small grey canister, and that had only been the cap’s goddamn _blood_. Jack had met the man himself once in Japan—watched him saunter through a battlefield, carelessly deflecting enemy fire off his shield, and rescue a group of trapped civilians and bring them to safety, all while smiling reassuringly. It hadn’t even been his primary mission—he’d already completed it and had just been _passing by_ and decided to do another good deed.

He, Jack, was a wreck. He couldn’t sleep without the help of bourbon anymore, he had no personal relationships to speak of outside his S.S.R. colleagues, he essentially lived at the office, wasn’t speaking to any of his family aside from his grandmother—and had just gotten Peggy into worse trouble at the agency, where she was finally starting to be accepted. Captain America probably would have insisted on telling the chief and calling for backup. Captain America probably wouldn’t have let her get suspended from a job that she loved but didn’t love her back.

“Get home safely,” Jack finally said.

She looked momentarily let down (or maybe just confused), but then she nodded and walked away. Jack got into the car and drove away, feeling a hundred years old.

 

Peggy felt about a hundred years old. She was drained—physically and emotionally—and now she was back to square one at work. Alienating the new chief who’d just been coming to respect her, really clever, Peggy, going off to chase Dottie on your own. What had she expected would happen? What had she been trying to prove? That she was a better agent than everyone else? She _had_ wanted praise, honestly, deep down—some kind of recognition, some validation for all her efforts.

What smarted most was that the chief was right. She had been reckless. With everything. She was… tired. She was just tired. She wanted more than anything right now to just go home and take a bath, but she knew she was too keyed up to get any kind of sleep tonight. She wanted to talk to someone. She wanted to talk to—Jack, really, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about all that right now. Angie would still be at one of the S.S.R. safe houses. She couldn’t call Mr. Jarvis, he’d most likely been asleep for seven hours already. Maybe she would stay up a few more hours and then call him.

She nearly fell into her apartment in exhaustion. She dropped her coat on the floor, kicked her scuffed heels off her stocking-less feet, pulled off her left garter (keeping her mind carefully blank), and headed to the kitchen where she made herself a stiff drink. It was nearing five a.m. now—maybe she’d sleep the entire day away. Then when she woke it would only be six days until her suspension was over.

She grimaced up at the ceiling as she heard scratching across the roof. Literally the only drawback to living in a penthouse apartment was the noises of various nocturnal animals. Not that most people were ever awake to hear them, she thought wryly, finishing off another drink in one pull. She placed the empty glass in the sink and went to pull the curtains in the living room—she was planning to block out all sunlight for the next few days—when she froze, squinting her eyes.

A pair of gloves had appeared on the windowsill.


	6. pockets

Peggy reached for her gun, only to remember that it was in her coat pocket. She ran for the front door, a little unsteady from the gin, and crouched down beside her discarded coat, fumbling for the pockets.

She retrieved it and rose to her feet, aiming at the window—just in time to see one of the gloved hands falter and slip. There was a cry of alarm, and then the other hand disappeared as well. She heard a faint _thump_ far below and then nothing.

Peggy inched toward the window, keeping her gun cocked and her finger on the trigger. She placed a kick right to the middle. The two panes flew open. She flattened herself against the wall, peering cautiously around the corner. When nothing appeared, she risked a look below.

The large Russian man—Dottie’s partner—was lying still on the ground below with a puddle of blood pooling beneath his head. Peggy ran her fingers across the windowsill. It was slick with something—oil, it felt like. He’d probably used it to stop Howard’s alarm system from triggering.

“Impaled by your own sword, mate,” she muttered, and shut the window. She then phoned up the S.S.R. office. The new recruit, Agent Jones, was on duty. She explained the situation to him, hung up, and then promptly went to sleep.

 

Peggy and Jack’s return to the office was slightly anticlimactic. Their screw-up had been overshadowed by the agents who let Dottie and her partner escape _from custody_. The chief had by no means forgiven them for their actions, however, and had removed them from their present assignments to instead do all of the tedious, time-consuming, government-required paperwork.

“Sir,” said Peggy, “I really feel that it would be in everyone’s best interest if we contributed to the search for Dottie Underwood.”

“Denied, Carter,” said the chief.

“We would be perfectly willing to undertake the paperwork for as long as you need _after_ we’ve found her—”

“And I’ve got an office full of talented agents out there who are hard on the job. I think they can handle it.” He folded his hands across his chest. “Granted, no one’s been able to find the name of that Russian cadaver we’ve got downstairs yet—”

“His name’s Sergei Petrov,” said Jack. “Patronymic unknown. From Kiev.”

At Peggy and Chief’s looks of disbelief, he shrugged. “Had to do something during that week off.”

“Most men would play golf,” the chief suggested.

“I’d rather bash in my brains with a driver.”

“Hmph,” said the chief, fighting a smile. “ You come across any information about Dottie Underwood or whatever the hell her real name is while you were relaxingly researching?”

“No, sir.”

The chief sighed. “Didn’t really expect you to. We even dusted both their car and the armored car for prints. Nothing.”

“I imagine her prints would have been burned off,” said Peggy. “Sir.”

Both Jack and the chief looked equally horrified.

“Well,” Chief said, “at least now we know what we’re up against,” and Peggy had to refrain from rolling her eyes. “Thompson, bring me all the information you have on Petrov before you start your paperwork. Dismissed.”

They left his office and for a moment stood just beyond it. Jack’s nose was still slightly purple, and he was holding his arm stiffly. Peggy herself had a constellation of bruises across her abdomen, which was fortunately hidden by clothing. This was the first time they had been alone since the car ride back to the city. A heavy curtain of awkwardness lingered between them, both aware of the office full of eyes and ears. Then they went to their respective desks to get started on the grunt work.

 

Peggy started spending more time at home that week, and took to going by the L&L Diner every day for lunch to visit Angie, who had now safely returned to the apartment and thought the whole experience of fleeing to an S.S.R. safehouse had been a grand adventure.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Angie said, leaning on the counter, “but this is the most I’ve seen you since we moved in together. What’s going on?”

“Couldn’t I just want to spend time with my best friend?” Peggy said lightly.

“Give me some credit. I know you better than that. You sweet-talk when you want to hide something. So what is it? Something to do with Mr. Tall Blond and Handsome?”

Peggy shrugged. “No. There’s nothing going on with him.”

“Hm.” Angie eyed her critically, but didn’t pry further. “So the manager has officially canceled the show in light of three crewmembers being murdered by his mistress.”

“I’m sorry, Angie,” Peggy murmured.

“Yeah,” said Angie soberly. “I mean, they were all assholes and nobody liked them, but still. Terrible way to go. Anyhow, rumor has it that the manager’s checked himself into a sanatorium for a while to recuperate.” She sighed. “Back to the audition purgatory.”

Peggy stirred her tea in guilty silence.

“I’m not blaming you!” Angie said irritably. “God, you don’t have to be a martyr all the time. You didn’t _ask_ for Dottie to infiltrate our B-rate production. If anything, I should’ve recognized her. Man, she’s good. Should’ve been taking acting lessons from _her_.” She frowned thoughtfully. “What’s her real name anyhow?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Strange. Must be lonely. _All right, I’m coming!_ Better go. See ya at home.” Angie rushed off to deal with a crisis in the back of the diner. Peggy paid and left.

 

If anything, it was she that was lonely. Her interactions with Jack at the office were pared down to a bare minimum—and all conversations were conducted in polite, slightly distant tones. Both of them seemed unwilling to talk about what had happened and neither wanted to make the first move.

_A couple of stubborn asses, the pair of us_ , Peggy thought tetchily. She suspected that the problem was that they were both far too accustomed to being on their own. The idea of giving up your independence is daunting. Also… she had been trying to deny this to herself, but a part of her felt that falling for someone new would be a betrayal to Steve. Which was ridiculous, she knew—Steve himself wouldn’t have hesitated to tell her this—but although the pain of his death wasn’t as fresh anymore, it still felt very recent.

So as a couple more weeks passed and they continued to address each other in overly polite voices, she was almost able to persuade herself that their actions at his grandmother’s house had arisen from adrenaline and the heat of the moment. Until one afternoon that she was stuck on the phone with a man who sounded as if he were talking around a mouthful of marbles.

“Thompson,” she called across the room.

She saw his back stiffen. Not the kind where you froze in fear, but more the kind where you’ve received an electrical shock. He came to stand beside her with a wary expression.

“Could you talk to this man from South Carolina?” she whispered, covering the receiver with her hand. “I speak six languages, but I cannot for the life of me make out what he’s saying,” she added in exasperation. “I’m not entirely sure it’s human speech.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. He held out his hand for the phone. “Thompson here,” he said.

He motioned for her to hand him a pad of paper and pencil. She did, watching as he scribbled down the transcript of the conversation. She noticed that his speech patterns were lapsing back into a deeper southern drawl the longer he spoke with the man at the other end of the line.

Jack hung up the phone and handed her the pad. “There’s your testimony. Word for word.”

Peggy looked down at the pad, then up at him, then turned the pad around for him to see with a look on her face that clearly said, _the fuck is this?_

He smirked. “Shorthand.”

“ _You_ can write shorthand, Agent Thompson?”

“You’re not the only one who’s been relegated to secretary in the past,” he said. He chewed on the end of the pencil with the cocky grin he only used when wanting to drive her crazy.

“Kindly desist,” she snapped, yanking the pencil out of his mouth. “So unsanitary.”

“I don’t remember my germs bothering you before, Carter,” he said, falling back into their old habit of verbal sparring.

But the remembrance of that scene in his grandmother’s kitchen flashed before both of their eyes. His grin faded and he nodded down to the pad. “Reckon you should let Chief know,” he said and turned to walk back to his desk.

“Jack— Wait.”

He half-turned, eyebrows raised. “What is it?”

She clenched her hand around the pencil. “I don’t know,” she admitted. She just hadn’t wanted him to leave.

His eyes softened and he took the pad from her. “I’ll take this to Chief, if you’d like. Bad news always sounds better in a Georgia drawl.”

“Do you want to go get a cup of coffee?” she blurted. “I’m nearly falling asleep standing up,” she added, lamely.

Jack looked at her for a moment, searchingly, then said, “Yeah. Let’s go.” He tossed the pad back onto her desk.

“Er, shouldn’t we debrief the chief first?” said Peggy.

“Nah. No rush. Bad news always keeps.”

 

They didn’t return from their coffee break for over an hour, to the chief’s fury. Then by tacit consent they went to dinner after work and then for drinks that lasted well into the night.

They talked about nothing in particular, cautiously gauging the waters of this new relationship—not romantic yet, per se, but more of a friendship with potential. By some unspoken agreement, neither attempted to talk about this change in their arrangement. They began to spend more time together, both inside and outside of work. They would never have said that they were officially dating, though Jack had stopped hitting on women in bars and Peggy turned down all drinks or dinner invitations from other men.

And as occurs when you spend extended periods of time with any other person, they slowly started to collect tidbits about the other. Although Jack never overtly said these things, Peggy knew about his father’s loose fists, the struggle and isolation Jack had felt growing up as a fairly bright child in rural Georgia, how his mother would guilt-trip and mock him for his intelligence and how he still felt the need to hide behind throwaway quips even to this day.

Jack came to appreciate the daily, unending struggle Peggy went through to prove her competence and worth in a world that still insisted on shoving her into the margins; how she had become accustomed to taking care of everything by herself for so many years that it took careful maneuvering and large amounts of patience to get her to open up; and that she (like Dottie Underwood) yearned for a family—or even a tight-knit set of friends—so badly that other agents’ exclusion of her socially was still devastating.

If the other S.S.R. agents noticed the change in their dynamic at work, nobody said anything. In truth, most of the other men were preoccupied with their own lives, so if a couple of them noted that Thompson and Carter’s debates had become less acerbic and more playful, it wasn’t a large enough shift to foster gossip.

Meanwhile Peggy was becoming aware of just how big a role Jack Thompson now played in her life. It didn’t escape that he was the one she always went to first to talk through a problem, the one she picked fights with when she was angry and needed to blow off steam, and the only person (aside from Angie) that she felt wholly at ease around.

She’d loved Steve—of course she had—but he was gone and there was no denying that. Jack was here, and very real. And it was different with him. Whatever her and Steve’s relationship could have been—and she would never know for sure—the reality was that they were afforded precious little interaction during the war years. Every moment they had together had the potential to be their last; and when that’s the case, you try to be the best version of yourself. You don’t want to part on bad terms when either of you could be dead in the mud of a European field the next minute. But now—here with Jack—in peacetime—she could let her guard down.

She could shout at him and storm away in a huff and not see him for several days, and the worst that would happen is maybe he would be short with her around the office. She could sit with him in relative silence at a café, reading a book while he absently did the paper’s crossword, and not feel as if they were wasting precious time.

She’d come to lean on him quite a lot, she realized, recalling the prescient advice Mr. Jarvis had once given her: _There is no man or woman, no matter how fit he or she may be, who is capable of carrying the entire world on their shoulders_.

Which is why she found herself standing out in the hallway in front of his apartment at eleven p.m. one Tuesday night, knocking insistently on the door. He opened it, wearing only an undershirt, pajama pants, and an expression of stunned surprise.


	7. rings

“I think I may have had a breakthrough about Dottie,” Peggy said in a rush, letting herself into his apartment.

Jack closed the door behind her, looking both baffled and amused. “This couldn’t wait until work tomorrow?”

“No,” she said, settling onto his couch, “I’ve got to talk this through while the ideas are still fresh.”

“You could’ve called,” he suggested, sitting down next to her.

(He could tell that she must have run over here as soon as the idea had struck her, for she’d already taken off her trademark red lipstick. She’d also thrown on a pair of rain boots and a grubby old trench coat over her trousers and blouse leftover from the workday. She looked adorable.)

Peggy dragged her eyes away from the incredible distracting view of his upper body in only an undershirt. “I don’t have your phone number.”

A strange look crossed his face as he realized this was true—for all the hours they spent together each day. “And how did you know where I lived?”

“Your personnel file. So I don’t think Chief will be thrilled with this—”

“You memorized my address off my personnel file?”

“I have every S.S.R. agent’s address memorized,” she said impatiently. “Just in case.” Jack decided not to ask any more questions. “So as I was saying, I don’t think Chief will be particularly thrilled with a plan like this—he may need some persuasion—”

Jack listened attentively, making no move other than to absentmindedly rub his hands together. He stayed quiet when she finished her explanation, but Peggy could tell that he was hiding a smile.

“You’re right,” he finally said. “I don’t think the chief would go in for this kind of thing. But I guess you’ve got time to work on him. Once we find Dottie—”

“Oh, I’ve already found her,” said Peggy. “Ages ago.”

There was a loud silence.

“You what now?” said Jack.

“It was fairly simple, really. I already had the clue you gave me last time, and then I added in the girls’ boarding school factor. She has precious little identity,” Peggy explained, eyes bright with the high that came from solving a puzzle, “aside from that and ballet. I cross-checked all the other Griffith residents’ backgrounds for either of those things, and found a couple girls who are schoolteachers… and Bob’s your uncle.”

Jack leaned forward to kiss her, but checked himself halfway. His eyes met hers, searching, and then, heart pounding, Peggy closed the distance between them.

This kiss was very different from their previous one. While their encounter in the kitchen had been fueled by adrenaline and months of pent-up desire, this one was unhurried and lingering. Jack pulled her onto his lap, savoring the heady feel of her, wincing slightly as Peggy ran her hands up his arms and over his healing injury.

When they broke for air sometime later, Jack let his hands slide down and rest upon her waist. He was staring at her with an inscrutable expression, but she could feel his hands trembling at her sides.

“Don’t look so worried,” she said, her hands still tangled in his hair. “It’s not just… messing about, for me.”

He seemed to understand the deeper sentiment behind her phrasing. A look of profound relief crossed his face. “Me neither, Carter,” he said, and pulled her close again.

 

The next morning at the S.S.R. office marked a historic event. The agents had long since perfected the ability to gauge the chief’s reaction by the depth of his eyebrow furrow. This morning, during the private discussion Carter and Thompson had requested in his office, his brow was so furrowed that it looked as if the worry lines had been chiseled there with a sledgehammer.

The agents surreptitiously watched through his office windows. Carter seemed to be doing all the talking, with Thompson periodically adding comments or gesticulating. The chief, however, didn’t appear to say a word. He just listened. Even when Carter had finished her speech and stepped back from the desk, twisting her hands behind her back, the chief just sat and stared with his chin resting in his palm.

Finally the chief closed his eyes, as if in physical pain. Then he gave an infinitesimal nod.

Carter and Thompson fairly shot out of his office, grabbing coats and hats from their desks on the way to the elevator, whose down button Thompson jammed repeatedly. They flew into the elevator while the doors were still opening, as if afraid the chief would come storming out of his office with a different answer.

The elevator doors closed and the other agents set about clearing up all the papers from the floor that had been blown off their desks in the wake of Carter and Thompson’s flight.

“Now where are they rushing off to?” asked Agent Jones.

Agent Franklin shrugged. “Probably to get hitched.”

 

The cab pulled in front of the cathedral in a long screech of tires. Jack turned to Peggy with a serious expression. “You sure about this?”

“Yes.”

He fished inside his pocket and pulled out two gold rings, handing one to her. They slipped them on their fingers in identical movements, paid the cab fare, and got out of the car.

Peggy took hold of Jack’s arm as they walked inside the church. She nodded pleasantly to the nun seated in the small office directly inside. The nun smiled and pushed aside the letter she was writing.

“May I help you?”

“Yes,” said Peggy, “my husband and I are looking for a kindergarten for our daughter. We know the school year’s well underway, but we’re—well—” she sent an adoring glance his way, which he responded to with a wink—“we’re in the _family way_ , and I just don’t think I’ll have the energy for a five-year-old once I’m further along.”

“I see,” the nun said cheerfully. “I can set you up an appointment with Sister Elizabeth to have her officially registered, but I wouldn’t think it should be a problem. We’ve just added a new teacher this year, so there is plenty of space.”

“Yes, I’ve heard!” Peggy said eagerly. “That’s the reason we came here today, in fact, my good friend, Anita Morgan, was just _raving_ to me about her. We _were_ hoping to meet with her, but of course we understand how busy teachers are…”

“Well, you’re in luck,” the nun said. “The children are at recess right now. You should be able to catch her.”

“That would be _lovely_ ,” Peggy exclaimed.

“I’m sure she would be happy to meet your daughter too,” the nun said, peering through the window. “Is she—?”

“At her Gam-Gam’s for the day,” said Jack, flashing his most charming smile.

“Ah,” said the nun, clicking her tongue. “Well, the courtyard’s right through that door—down there—yes—have a good day…”

“Thank you so much!” Peggy called over her shoulder as they walked the length of the church toward the door at the far left end. “Wait inside,” Peggy said under her breath.

“Are you crazy?” Jack whispered back, having already taken the safety already off his gun.

“We don’t want to spook her. I’ll talk to her alone, first.”

“All right,” he said grudgingly. “But if she so much as twitches in your direction, I’m firing to kill.”

“Jack, there are kids around. I don’t think she’ll try anything.”

“All the same,” he said grimly, coming to a stop just behind the doorjamb of the open door. “Go.”

Peggy stepped out with her hands up. The courtyard was an outline of stone with a square of grass in the middle. Children in parochial school uniforms were running and shouting. To her left was a nun standing demurely in the shadow of the church.

“I come in peace,” Peggy said, as Dottie spotted her and tensed. “I just want to talk.”

“Oh yeah?” Dottie said, a growl evident beneath her soft and gentle tone. “Then what’s your blond watchdog doing back there?”

“Just waiting for me. Please, Dottie, just listen. We’re at an impasse, and you know it. There’s no way the S.S.R. will ever be able to apprehend you—at least not for very long—and we’ve all but eradicated the remaining Leviathan links here in New York. Your partner fell to his death a few weeks ago. You’re alone.”

“That’s what you think,” Dottie snarled, stepping back.

“I don’t want to kill you,” said Peggy softly. “And I don’t want you to kill any more of my people. We’re offering…” she paused, then carried on with more certainty: “We’re offering to turn a blind eye. You leave the country—never to return—and we will promise to never come hunting for you.”

Dottie stared at her with a lost expression before the curtain of neutrality dropped again. “Or I could just kill you instead.”

“I don’t think so,” Peggy said pleasantly (though Jack could hear the steel gnashing beneath). “If you recall, I’ve bested you in two out of three fights. And Agent Thompson’s just behind that door with a Southern temper and a knife wound he’d love to reciprocate. So.” She took a step back, dropping her hands. “The offer’s good for twenty-four hours. We’ll be watching the transportation links.”

Dottie watched her back slowly toward the doorway. Peggy raised a hand, feeling somewhat melancholy.

“Best of luck,” she said, and disappeared through the doorway.

 

Jack kept his gun out and trained behind them the entire way to the church entrance, not caring what the nun in the office thought. Then they were through the doorways and out on the busy Manhattan thoroughfare.

Jack stowed his gun back in its holster and they set off down the street at a brisk pace, taking turns to glance back over their shoulders.

“You think she’ll take the deal?” he asked.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

Peggy started to pull on a pair of gloves, then realized she was still wearing the fake wedding ring. “Here,” she said, sliding it off her finger and handing it to Jack. He took it, removed his own, and tucked them both back into his pocket. They exchanged a glance, both thinking _maybe someday?_ but, perhaps out of superstition, neither voiced the hope aloud.

Jack slid an arm around her waist and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Back to the office? Or should we stop by the diner first?”

“Diner,” said Peggy. “And then the department store. I’m out of stockings again.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all SO MUCH for reading and commenting! I’ve had a hell of a good time writing this, and it’s been so fun sharing it with the cartson community. I love you all. Come say hi on tumblr: sonatine.tumblr.com
> 
> There will be a new cartson fic coming up soon. In the meantime, if you want more Dottie Underwood (such an interesting character, right?) you can read Back to Basics, in which she features prominently. See you all soon, lovelies xx


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